How To Add Charts And Graphs To WordPress

No doubt you’re familiar with the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words.” This is certainly true when you are presenting or explaining data.

Using charts and graphs is useful for breaking up content with loads of text, and making statistical data more easily digestible.

You can use tables to present information, but if you want your audience to try and interpret complex data with figures, trends or relationships easily, then charts and graphs allow you to present data in an intelligent and meaningful manner that can be easily processed.

Charts and graphs help explain complex data so your audience can more easily understand it!

If you want to learn how to present information visually and dynamically on your WordPress site using graphs and charts, this tutorial will show you how to create and add eye-catching and interactive charts to your WordPress posts that:

• Your web visitors can interact with
• Lets you add data from your computer or an online source of data
• Will dynamically resize for mobile browsing

If you are displaying visual data like bar charts, comparison charts or trending graphs containing static information (e.g. historical data), a simple method you can use is to create the graphs or charts using a desktop application, convert these into jpg and png images and then simply insert your images into your post or page.

Use WordPress Chart & Graph Plugins

If you want to embed dynamic bars and pie graphs into WordPress with no coding skills required, the easiest way to do this is to use a plugin.

Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress that is simple to install, easy-to-use and allows you to not only create appealing and interactive graphs and charts, it also lets you populate your charts and graphs with updateable data.

Visualizer Plugin For WordPress

Visualizer URL

You can install the plugin inside your WP dashboard (we show you how to do this a little further below), or download the WordPress Visualizer plugin the WP free plugin repository using the link below:

http://wordpress.org/plugins/visualizer

Visualizer Plugin Description

WordPress Visualizer is a simple, easy to use and powerful tool that allows you to create, manage and embed stunning graphs into your WordPress posts and pages with a few mouse clicks.

The plugin uses Google Visualization API to render charts, which support cross-browser compatibility (adopting VML for older IE versions) and cross-platform portability to iOS and new Android releases, and are based on pure HTML5/SVG technology (adopting VML for old IE versions), so no extra addons are needed.

Visualizer also provides a variety of charts that are optimized to address your data visualization needs, including:

• Line chart
• Area chart
• Bar chart
• Column chart
• Pie chart
• Geo chart
• Gauge chart
• Candlestick chart
• Scatter chart

Visualizer is a flexible and customizable plugin, allowing you to use Google Chart Tools with their default setting, or configure an extensive set of options to match the look and feel of your website. Various options are available for each chart that allow you to customize their look.

Additionally, charts are rendered using HTML5/SVG technology to provide cross-browser compatibility (including VML for older IE versions) and cross platform portability to iPhones, iPads and Android devices. Your blog or site visitors can see your charts and graphs on their mobile web browsers without requiring the installation of additional plugins.

How To Install The Plugin

From your WP admin area, select Plugins > Add New from the main menu …

In the Add Plugins screen type in “visualizer” into the search field and hit enter …

Locate Visualizer in the search results section and click the “Install Now” button …

Click OK to go ahead …

Activate the plugin after installation is successful …

You can also activate the plugin in the Plugins page …

After your plugin has been activated, click on Library …

You can also get to the plugin’s ‘library’ screen by choosing Media > Visualizer Library from your dashboard menu …

This brings up the plugin’s Visualizer Library settings …

When you first install the plugin, the library contains no charts.

Your next step is to add the charts and graphs to your library that you plan to display in your pages or posts.

Visualizer Configuration

To add a chart or graph to the library, click on the Add New button …

A page will load on your screen with all the different kinds of graphs and charts available.

Select the type of chart or graph you would like to create and click on the ‘Next’ button …

Your graph/chart type will open up in a new window.

The next step is to upload a CSV file containing your data …

When creating your CSV data file, make sure that:

• Your first row includes the column headings.
• Your second row includes the series type (e.g. boolean, datetime, etc.)

The screenshot below shows how to format your data as per the requirements above …

If you are not sure how to format your CSV file, just study the sample supplied with the plugin.

Once you have completed this step, select your data source (‘From Computer’ or ‘From Web’) in the ‘Upload CSV File’ section.

Upload CSV File From Computer

To upload your CSV file and data from your computer select ‘From Computer‘ …

Locate and select your file and then click on ‘Open‘ …

The plugin will now import the data and display it using the graph/chart type you have previously selected …

Upload CSV File From The Web

To learn how to create, save and publish data to a Visualizer chart or graph using Google Spreadsheet, see the article below:

• How To Populate Data Using Google Spreadsheet

After importing the data, check that all of your information is correct (if not, click on the ‘Back’ button and reupload a new data file containing the right data), and then click ‘Next‘ …

Depending on the chart or graph type selected, the plugin displays various customization settings and options …

Visualizer gives you complete control of your chart or graph, and updates your display in real time …

For example, the pie chart offers many configurable options, such as:

• General Settings – Configure chart title settings, font styles, tooltip, and legend.
• Pie Settings – Create 3D pie charts, draw slices counterclockwise, set the text content displayed on the slice, create a “donut” pie chart, rotate the chart’s “start” angle and set the slice border color.
• Residue Settings – Set the ‘Visibility Threshold’ (the slice relative part, below which a slice will not show individually.), ‘Residual Slice Label’ (the label for the combination slice that holds all slices below slice visibility threshold, e.g. “Other”), and ‘Residue Slice Color’.
• Slice Settings – Customize the ‘Slice Offset’ (how far to separate the slice from the rest of the pie), and ‘Slice Color’.
• Layout & Chart Area – Configure the layout (total size of chart) including the width and height of the chart as a number of percentage, background color for the main area of the chart and the chart border width and color, and the placement and size of the chart area (where the chart itself is drawn, excluding axis and legends).

Once you are happy with the look of your chart or graph, click on the ‘Create Chart’ button …

Your graph or chart will now be added to your ‘Visualizer Library’ section …

Note that every new element is given a unique ID displayed as a shortcode. As you will see shortly, this allows you to add graphs and charts to your content very quickly …

Charts and graphs added to the Visualizer Library can be accessed by their type …

After adding a new item to the ‘Visualizer Library’, you can edit it, clone it, or delete it …

Visualizer Usage

After you have created a graph or chart and added it to Visualizer, adding it to a post or page is very simple.

First, create a new post or page (or open an existing one) …

Next, place your mouse cursor where you would like to insert your visual element into the content and click on the ‘Add Media‘ button …

Click on ‘Visualizations‘ …

Find the graph or chart to be added to your content and click on the “insert” icon …

This inserts a shortcode into your content …

After you have added the visual element, click on Publish to publish (or update) your content …

Once the page/post has been published, click ‘View post’ to see the result …

Your element will show up in the content …

As mentioned previously, the plugin also displays responsive elements for mobile browsing …

As you can see, Visualizer allows you to add and customize dynamic charts and graphs in your content. You can change your data and your changes will automatically be reflected throughout your website. This makes managing interactive chart information in WordPress very efficient.

The developers of this plugin have created a series of step-by-step tutorials you can use to learn how to edit, customize and use the Visualizer plugin for WordPress.

For tutorials on editing, cloning, deleting and adding data to your charts, go to the website below:

• WordPress Visualizer – Additional Tutorials

Congratulations! Now you know how to easily create appealing and interactive pie charts and graphs in WordPress with WP Visualizer.

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